Siena in a Nut Shell

Totally not tourists...

We went to Siena on Friday for the night, and I honestly can not remember the last time I laughed so hard. I got an ab workout from this vacation. You know you made a great group of friends when the best part of a vacation was just a free walk down a hill. But in order to do this Siena story some justice, I'll start from the beginning.
We missed the Siena Rapida bus so we caught the one that left just a short ten minutes after it. NEVER take a non-rapida bus... The one hour bus ride turned into one that was over two hours. But after that was out of the way we all wandered to our hotel, totally blending into the crowd....

Way too happy that I didn't fall. That smile is huge

After the mission of finding our hotel was completed we decided to get some pizza for lunch (it was nothing really special) and find Piazza del Campo. Now normally this piazza is crowded with tourists because it has the city hall and a lot of shops and bars, but because we picked the one weekend in seven years that Siena is covered in ice and snow, it was deserted. We did see some kids sledding... on garbage bags!! I wanted to join but instead Sienna (a girl in the group I traveled with, I'm not just referring to the town as a person) and I attempted to walk down the hill in the middle of the Piazza. It was like walking on an ice rink that had a down hill slope. EVERYONE was screaming "Bre you're going to die!" and they were just waiting for me to fall down. I didn't though! Had way too many close calls but I stayed on my feet and made it all the way down. It was a proud moment for me.

The Piazza

The Cathedral Outside

The Siena Duomo 

After that we decided to do the normal tourist things, head to the museums and the Duomo and the huge towers that give an amazing view of Siena. However when we went to buy the passes to do all of this we learned all of the towers were closed because apparently Siena doesn't know how to clear off snow and ice from their stairs so it was too hazardous.... I'm still alittle bitter about it. But we still managed to have a great time. We went to the museum, the bapistry, the duomo... all of which were beautiful.

Clearly Italians can handle hills better than me... But look at all the ICE!

      The real fun started when Kendall, Kristi, Sara, and I all headed back outside to the FREEZING cold weather in search of the Cripta. I still can't even tell you what a cripta is but what I can tell you is we circled this huge church (which sits on a hill) about three times before we actually found it. On the first time around we decided to try to walk down the ice covered hill. Now in order to really make you understand just how funny this scenario is I'm going to have to try to paint a picture for you. There are 4 american girls scaling the side of a building (as if clinging to brick will really keep us from falling) inching our way slowly down what seemed like a HUGE hill. Less than a fourth of the way down an Italian man sees us doing this. So he assumes the hill is incredibly icy and slowly begins his own descent. However, he must be wearing shoes that actually have traction, because he shortly discovered HE can walk just fine down this damn hill. He looks at us as if to say "what on earth is wrong with you girls?!" and then proceeds to casually stroll past us down the hill. By the time he gets to the bottom of the entire hill, we've managed to move maybe 5 feet. Maybe. This makes us start to laugh, and then quickly we all can not stop laughing at how ridiculous I look. I decided to be the leader down this expedition (only God knows why....) and I was not being successful. I would slip every foot or so and take a stance that can only be related to a sumo wrestler. So here I am inching down a hill in a sumo pose against a brick wall, laughing my butt off! To clearly show how much I was laughing; I was shaking violently from trying not to laugh too loud (which made me slip even more!), tears were streaming with a constant flow down my face, there may or may not have been a snort or two thrown in there, and at one point I had to crouch down because I honestly thought I was going to wet myself! I was dying! It was the high light of our trip because it was HILARIOUS! I feel like just telling the story isn't giving it justice but I don't know how else to explain how much this hill makes me laugh still.

Kristi snapped this beauty on the way down. This is what I looked like when I wasn't struggling.... That corner up there was a struggle though! I referred to is as "The Corner from Hell"

So after managing the damn hill with no grace whatsoever, we realized we needed to go back up because the Cripta wasn't at the bottom of the hill. We chose to try to other side of the church to see if that would be easier. It was a very narrow street with cars parked on the left. As car drove by us we all went to the right side of the rode to get out of the way. After seeing how close to us the car still came we discussed out loud that next time we should move to the left side of the road between parked cars. Not even a minute later a car comes. Kristi, Sara, and I all move to the left. Kendall however throws herself at a door on the right side of the road. We all stare at her in stunned silence because she is honestly in a position people take when they are going to be frisked! Hands over her head, flat against the door, feet spread apart. We DIED laughing yet again. It became the joke of the weekend. Anytime a car drives by we screamed "KENDALL, CAR!" and all dove against a door. I'm laughing now just thinking about it. 

She had just started moving out of her pose... but this was Kendall against the door.

I managed to eat that entire thing.... Wow.

So after all that laughter we finally found the stupid cripta. It was just a lot of rocks under glass windows... But then we were hungry and decided to go to this pizza place Ellen had heard about. La Pizzeria Di Nonno. I recommend it to any one who ever plans to go to Siena. I got a huge calzone! It was amazing!!!!!! Best food I've had so far, and I've had some great food. 

This picture may not give the grandeur of it justice. 

The next day we went to the soccer stadium we saw on the bus ride in. It is HUGE. I wish I got to play on a field like that, it would be absolutely amazing. I just kept thinking, if these seats were filled it would be such a rush to have such a large audience. Oh well, I can keep dreaming. Maybe one day?

Then we didn't have much time left before our bus left, so we marched on over to The Chapel of Saint Catherine. Saint Catherine was the 24th of 25 children born to Lucca. At age 7 she vowed chastity because Jesus provided all the ecstasy she needed. She was the first woman to ever be published and it was an amazing accomplishment that she was able to get her voice heard in the 1300's. She died in 1380 and the chapel was named after her. It has a beautiful stained glass window and hand painted ceiling. To the right it has this large shrine that has a window in a golden frame. Inside this window is the actual head of Saint Catherine! I did NOT see that coming when we were wandering around!! We were freaking out and Ashley may have let out a swear word (but we've accidentally sworn in every single church we have been into... sorry God.). But the fact that in 1380 people thought "oh we really need to preserve this woman's head for forever!" it crazy!!! I'm still freaking out about it.

Saint Catherine... just chillin'.
(I took this picture off of Google. You aren't allowed to take pictures in the church)

So gross. Anyways for those of you still reading this novel of a post we only did one more thing in Siena. We went back to the pizzeria because it had a beautiful view that we couldn't get a good picture of the night before because it was too dark outside. This view defines Siena I feel like. It was breath taking in person. Made me less mad that we couldn't get the aerial views from the towers.  

Siena

After that we wasted about 30 minutes looking in shops. I got a dress for just ten euro :) . Then we got on the Rapida Firenze bus (soooo much better than the non-Rapida) and headed back to Florence. Tonight at like 1 AM I am going to a bar for the Super Bowl. Tomorrow seems like its going to be a homework day, and then classes start up again. I'll post again when life is interesting again. Ciao.